


Inertia

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inertia. It's only a place to be while you're waiting for your real life to start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inertia

## Inertia

by Silk

Author's website:  <http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/tinsel/>

All things Sentinel belong to Pet Fly and Paramount. Not me. Not for profit.

As always, this is for Tinnean, my beta, my Muse and my sister of the heart.

The R rating is for occasional bad language. This story is set post-Sentoo 2, but before TSbyBS.

* * *

Inertia: the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in motion to stay in motion. 

Yep, that's what the dictionary says, all right. The "in motion" part, that's me, of course. The "at rest" part, well, that's obviously Jim. By that, I don't mean that Jim is sedentary. The man hasn't got an off switch, know what I mean? He works hard. He plays hard. But... 

...heh heh. Knew there was a but, didn't you? There's always a but. 

But...he doesn't like change. He wears white socks. Buys them in packages of six at Sears. Plain, unadorned white socks. He's been wearing 'em since he was a kid. Why would he want to wear, say, burgundy? You know what he'd say? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't tell you how long to keep your hair. You don't tell me what color socks to wear, Chief. Got it? Good." 

Then there's food. Jim loves everything that's bad for him. Thick, greasy cheeseburgers. French fries. Salt. Caffeine. If he could find a way to work around an IV dripping hot, black coffee into his veins, he would do it in a heartbeat. That way, while his arteries become damn near impassable from all the congealed fat inside them, he can give himself a heavy jolt of caffeine to force that blood right on through. After a while, the difference between arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis becomes a moot point, y'know? 

Well, you know the saying: You can teach a man to make algae shakes, but you can't make him drink herbal tea, even if it _is_ good for him. 

Music? If the group has members younger than Jim, he doesn't want to know it exists. Give him his Santana and Stones tapes and Jim's a happy man. He doesn't do CD's. Won't have one in the truck. "What's wrong with tapes?" he bellowed just the other day. He calls my meditation music that "stuff with trees dancing". I can't argue with that. It does sound a little like the wind rustling through the leaves on a Fall day. 

Oh, it suddenly occurs to me that it might sound like I think Jim Ellison is a close-minded, tight-lipped, judgmental jerk. Nahhhh. He's no Neanderthal, even if some of that Sentinel hard wiring under the hood might make it _seem_ that way sometimes. 

He's a great guy. He's my best friend. And I guess, if truth were told, I wouldn't change anything about him. Guess inertia's catching, huh? 

Well...maybe I would change just _one_ thing. The women. 

Remember what I said about Jim and food? The same thing applies to him and women. If she's even remotely bad for him, he falls in love with her. He's attracted to women who screw him over and I don't mean that in a good way. 

I hate naming names, but...okay, this is just between you and me, right? I never liked Carolyn. There, I've said it and I'm glad. It feels good to get that out in the open once and for all. I'm not just saying that cause Carolyn didn't like _me_ either. Jim never should have married her. She didn't understand him. 

Okay, I know that makes me sound like The Other Woman, but that is _so_ not true. I mean... 

She was cold and impatient. Frankly, Jim got enough of that from his father. Growing up in the Ellison home must have been like sitting in on the last set of the band that played on the Titanic. So of course Jim expected to be treated badly. He asked for so little, and boy, did he get it. 

As for the ones that followed, all of them, every single one of them, was looking for something from Jim. They played him along. They were terrific in bed. In fact, the better they were in bed, the more they ended up hurting him. 

Except Alex. 

Alex hurt _me_ , too. 

She betrayed me. She took away the one thing that really mattered to me. Jim. And then she murdered me. 

In cold blood. Like the bitch she was. 

Bitter? I'm not bitter. The fact that I'm more upset about her taking Jim away from me than getting killed doesn't mean a thing. Does it? 

Jesus. Maybe it does. 

All this time I thought that Jim was the one who was resistant to change. But what about me? Yeah, I'm the one in constant motion. I never slow down, I'm always running, and I never get enough sleep. But... 

...there's that but again. 

Maybe I'm running in place. It's not like I ever get anywhere. I mean, I don't _want_ to get anywhere. For the first time in my life, I have a home. It's not a place, though. It's a person. 

It's Jim. 

I didn't want to die because I never had a chance to make the kind of life I wanted with Jim. Alex stole that from me. She stole time and opportunity and yes, Goddamn it, she even stole the love that should have been mine. 

Okay, what was between her and Jim wasn't about love. It was desire. It was lust. It was a fucking high-school infatuation, for God's sake, but it sure as hell wasn't love. 

Jim didn't give her that. Maybe that's why she got lost in the canyons of her mind. She had no anchor. 

I do. I stopped moving. I gave in to inertia. Embraced it fully, as if it were a controversial new religion. Because I'm right where I want to be. At Jim's side. And the only thing that could possibly make that better would be... 

...if Jim loved me the way I love him. 

I could find out. I could ask. But it's not worth the risk. What if we are _stuck_ in place? What if we _can't_ move any closer to each other? 

What's so great about change anyway? 

Inertia. 

It's only a place to be while I'm waiting for my real life to start. 

* * *

End Inertia by Silk: silkn1@worldnet.att.net

Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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